Jussie Smollett’s lawyers and family are demanding an emergency stay of the actor’s five-month jail sentence, saying “violent threats,” including a highly disturbing anonymous phone call, raise serious concerns about his safety behind bars.
According to Smollett’s spokesman, one of Smollett’s siblings received a wake-up call Friday morning at a number listed as his emergency contact to the prison when he was taken into custody Thursday night after sentencing for his conviction for hoax. on the basis of hatred.
“I hope what they do to that guy in jail is what they are going to do, right. They’ll take a broom handle and they’ll take this little [expletive]shove it in there and it’ll go,'[shrieking sound]says a male voice in a video of the call shared by Smollett’s team on Monday.
The threat appears to be reminiscent of the horrific police attack on Abner Louima in Brooklyn in 1997, in which Louima was raped with a broken broom in the 70th Precinct bathroom by Justin Wolpe, a disgraced NYPD officer serving a 30-year sentence for assault.
Smollett’s spokesman says the caller bombarded his brother’s number with a dozen other similar calls Friday morning.
In a new document calling for Smollett’s immediate release, the actor’s lawyers allege that he has also been the target of “vicious threats” on social media following his conviction, and that “no doubt reflects the hatred and desire for physical harm towards Smollett that he may experience.” . during imprisonment.”
Lawyers filing the appeal also argue that keeping Smollett in “protective custody” is essentially “solitary confinement” and could cause “extreme damage to his mental health.” They also claim that Smollett has a “weakened immune system” so his “potential exposure” to Covid-19 while in custody also poses a “serious health risk”.
The Cook County Sheriff’s Office, which operates the prison, told the Chicago Tribune on Monday that Smollett was placed in housing often used for people with mental illness, but “it would be inaccurate and irresponsible to make any assumptions about his mental or medical condition.” . the state depends on where he is currently located. Smollett is not currently under supervision for suicide, the office told the newspaper.
Jockie Smollett said in a video posted to the actor’s Instagram on Sunday that his brother is being held in a “psych ward” at the Cook County Jail in Chicago, but “is not in any way, shape or form, at risk of self-harm.”
“He’s very stable, he’s very strong, he’s very healthy and ready to take on the challenge that was ultimately thrown at him,” Jocky Smollett said in the video.
The new emergency statement from Smollett’s defense comes after his Empire co-star Taraji P. Henson pleaded for his release over the weekend, claiming in an Instagram post on Sunday that his jail sentence “doesn’t fit” with his conviction for staging a crime. on the basis of hatred.
“I’m not here to argue with you about his innocence, but we can agree that the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Emmett Till was severely beaten and eventually killed for lying, and none of the people involved in his death spent a day in jail, even after Caroline Bryant admitted her claims were false. No one was injured or killed during Jussi’s trial. He’s already lost everything, EVERYTHING!” Henson wrote in her post.
“For me as an artist, not being able to create this is punishment enough in itself. He can’t get a job. No one in Hollywood will hire him, and again, as an artist who loves to create, that is, a prison. I pray that he will be released and placed under house arrest and probation because that would be fair in this case. Please #freejussie,” she urged.
Smollett’s bizarre case dates back to January 2019, when the Empire actor claimed that two men disguised as balaclava masks hung a noose around his neck and yelled racist and homophobic slurs at him during an attack on a deserted street near his Chicago apartment in New York. Streeterville area.
Within weeks of his statement to the police, Smollett himself became a suspect in the incident, and authorities accused him of orchestrating the attack himself, with the help of the Nigerian-born brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo.
The brothers testified in court that Smollett paid them to stage the attack as a publicity stunt. Smollett maintained his innocence, but on December 9, 2021, a jury found him guilty on five of the six counts of disorderly conduct after a long-delayed trial.